Purity Starring Daniel Craig Gets Picked Up By Showtime

US channel Showtime today announced they have picked up a 20 episode limited series called Purity starring (possibly ex) James Bond actor Daniel Craig.

Daniel Craig

Based on the Jonathan Franzen novels, the series centres on Pip, a young American woman who’s real identity has been kept from her by her mother. She is recruited to work for the WikiLeaks-like ‘Sunshine Project’, lead by the charismatic Andreas Wolf (played by Craig), who promises to help her to discover her background and find out who her father is.

Purity with be adapted by Franzen along side The Hours screenwriter David Hare, with director Todd Field helming all 20 episodes. The series is produced by Field and Scott Rudin (The Newsroom, Ex Machina), with Craig, Field, Rudin, Franzen, Hare and Eli Bush (Ex Machina, The Newsroom) all exec producing.

Purity has been a much sort after script in Hollywood since it hit the marketplace back in February. President and CEO of Showtime Networks, David Nevins, said of the original novel “Jonathan Franzen’s Purity is an epic American novel that pulses with the energy of a psychological thriller. I whipped through it in a week!” He continues “His gripping and timely story has attracted a powerhouse team – Todd Field, Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, David Hare, along with Franzen himself, and the brilliant Daniel Craig who is perfectly cast as the charismatic, mysterious Andreas Wolf.”

The casting of Craig in a tv series (albeit a limited one) I’m sure will only continue to fuel the rumours that he’s done drinking his Martinis ‘shaken not stirred’, as he has yet to commit to another outing as Bond.

No news on when the show is likely to air, but we suspect it will be 2017. When it does, it will be on Sky Atlantic in the UK, due to their over-arching deal with Showtime for all their new content.